According to a report from ZDNet blog Hardware 2.0, Google’s Android platform is being plagued by a bug that Google is, for the most part, ignoring. The bug causes SMS messages to be delivered to the wrong recipient and occurrences appear to be random. Relegated to “Priority-Medium” on the Android developer forums, the bug was first reported to Google over six months ago in June, 2010, and yet it has still not been addressed. Perhaps the simplest description of the issue comes from the developer who first reported it:

Numerous subsequent posts on the thread confirm the bug. In an on-site poll, Hardware 2.0 also asks readers if they have been affected by this SMS bug. At the time this post was written, 30% of poll-takers indicated that the bug has affected their Android phones at some point. More →

Did we nail it or what? Today Rogers announced the creation of chatr, the low-cost wireless brand we exclusively told you about last week. Created to serve what Rogers calls a “niche” market that is not currently served by its flagship and value brands Rogers Wireless and Fido, chatr will offer no contract voice and text plans as well as unlimited talk and text plans. Data is not a part of chatr’s game plan. According to Rogers, the big draw of chatr is not only its great plans, but that for the first time it gives urbanites who simply want to make calls and send texts affordable service from a “network they can trust.” We were pretty curious about the timing of this launch, what with WIND Mobile now being half a year old and Mobilicity having only been on the scene for six weeks, so we asked Rogers about it. Surprisingly, they were adamant that they could not care less what their competitors are doing or where it is they are operating. They were quick to point out that chatr has been one year in the making and that it actually designed to mimic business model that allowed MetroPCS to go from a small time carrier to the 5th largest in the United States. Sadly this was about as much extra information as we could squeeze out of Rogers. As much as they want to get chatr up and running today, they’ve still got a few more things to do behind the scenes before it launches by the end of summer. This means that they can’t get into specifics about when the network will launch. But as we have said before, thanks to our connects we know that Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa are a lock. Anyone planning to wait with baited breath?

No doubt a response to Virgin Mobile’s serious push to reign supreme in the pre-paid market, T-Mobile today announced two new unlimited pre-paid plans which go live this Wednesday. Under the new plans, $15 will net users unlimited text, picture and video messages with nationwide voice calls at 10¢ per minute, while $50 offers the same in terms of messaging but allows for unlimited nationwide calls with no per-minute fees. Definitely not bad plans if you’re looking to kill off a landline and not get locked into a lengthy contract commitment, but we’d have loved it if T-Mobile were to introduce a third plan with data. We mean, they are trying to play it both ways, right?

Torontonians looking to save some money on their wireless bill should take note that a new carrier will be up and running as of tomorrow morning. Formerly known as DAVE Wireless, Mobilicity is looking to crack the local market provider business with plans that are far more competitive than its closest competition, WIND Mobile. We’ve got all the details about the company — and a little more thanks to our chat with Mobilicity’s Dave Dobbin — so hit the jump for all the deets. More →

Level with us — for all the complaining you do about your carrier not offering an affordable unlimited talk plan, how many minutes do you actually spend yapping on your cell phone per month? If you’re anything like the average person, you’re not doing it all that much. In fact, your use of data and texts far outweighs the voice minutes you log on a monthly basis, and what calls you do make are shorter. Since 2008, the CTIA has said voice calls are quickly going the way of the Dodo, with the average call length dropping over 20% from 2008 to 2009 alone. This comes at a time where the use of text messages alone increased 50% year-over-year, with half of America’s teens said to be sending more than 1,500 texts per month. So why is it that people are talking less? For starters, there’s convenience. Shooting someone a text, IM or email is far faster and less obtrusive than a phone call, allowing the recipients to carry on with their daily activities and respond at their leisure. Then there’s social customs. As rude as some might think it is to fire off a text in the company of others, we cannot imagine anyone who would prefer to sit in awkward silence as their friend carries out a 2 minute conversation about what’s happened on last night’s episode of The Hills. Not only that, but according to NPD analyst Ross Rubin, “handset design has become far less cheek-friendly” in recent years with most feature and smartphones requiring users to go through a multi-step process before initiating a simple phone call. So what does the future hold for the wireless industry? In lieu of the traditional charge for voice minutes, industry analysts are predicting that carriers will instead charge for the amount of data used…and we’re not sure that is going to be better.

More news on the messaging front is coming down from Rogers Wireless today as the company prepares to makes a few text-related changes to its service offerings. There has been a rumor going around for quite some time regarding the elimination of free incoming SMS for customers without text messaging plans and it looks like Rogers is finally getting ready to implement the new policy. Beginning July 7th, incoming SMS will run plan-less subscribers 15¢ per message — the same rate as outgoing texts. Customers with text messaging plans will continue to receive unlimited free incoming SMS. Rogers customers will find information to this effect circulated via bill inserts that will begin going out today.

Now before you start to get all crazy, we’ll repeat that this change only applies to those of you without a monthly messaging bundle; leaving the overwhelming majority of you unaffected. In fact, 94 percent of messages sent and received on Rogers’ network will not be affected by this news. Those of you currently without a messaging plan might want to consider catching up with the times; if you send and receive a combined 34 messages or more each month, it would now behoove you to snag the $5 bundle. Two related notes: Rogers is running a promo that provides unlimited free incoming tweets via SMS — whether or not you’re on a text messaging plan — for the remainder of 2009. Also, this policy change does not apply to Fido customers.